At AE86 Festival 2019, we thought of making things a bit interesting by searching out for 10 BEST AE86s. It was a for-fun activity we created, and we gave out special Japan-only 'Hayashi86' stickers to the owners as a token of appreciation. It was not easy to put 10 cars on the list because first of all, there were 300 cars and impossible to inspect each of them. The AE86s there were all good-looking and pretty in its own way. Therefore, this 'HAYASHI86 SELECT BEST 10' is not a battle to show whose car is the best and fastest, but to appreciate the uniqueness the Japanese owners portray through their cars.
*List below not following order
1) Car Boutique Club's N1 Style Levin
Mr Shimizu is the owner of Car Boutique Club and this AE86 Levin is his car that he has restored and modified to look like N1 style. He used to race with this AE86 as well which explains the roll cage and rear-seatless setup. AE85 colourway goes well with the concave TE37 7J wheels too.
2) Mr Odagawa's Black Limited AE86
Mr Odagawa's AE86 is one of the best looking Black Limited in this world! He has all the right mods in his car while keeping the exterior look as basic as possible flushed with matching Watanabe 8.5J wheels on all four.
Mr Odagawa has been driving his Black Limited for 10 years. It took only a year for him to build this setup when he first bought this Black Limited!
Our small token of appreciation given out the owners. However, some owners weren't at their cars, so we put it on the front windshield. Luckily no rain that day. ^^
3) Shakotan-style Levin AE86
This slammed-to-the-ground Levin AE86 got many attention from the passerby. This owner kept its original fender arch while wearing very wide classic gold BBS mesh wheels underneath, This car was heavily tinted, so we could only see the inte interior through the sunroof on top. We like it very much. Clean, simple and brave!
4) Miss Yoshida's Initial D AE86
Miss Yoshida is super passionate about Initial D and her story of how she managed to buy her own AE86 is amazing too (We'll share it out one day). The condition of her AE86 is really the best you could find in Japan.
The stock PU bumper, stock zenki seats, perfect interior trims, and a very rare signature on the dashboard. That's the signature of the Initial D author, Shuichi Shigeno!
For a lady AE86 owner, she has done quite an amazing feat with her AE86. She has visited all the real life Initial D mountain roads and even driven 1200km from Osaka City to Hokkaido!!
5) White N2 Levin
This N2 Levin looks clean and pure in white. It matches so well with the wide and shiny SSR Longchamp XR4 wheels. Even its GT-wing is in white. Very nice styling and the N2 kit fitment on this car is great too. However, we didn't get to meet the owner to know more about his AE86 story.
We noticed a mini fan in the car and many other Japanese AE86 owners also use this mini fan. Is it a Japanese thing? xD
6) 3S-GTE Scissor-door N2 Black Limited AE86
Yes, you read that right. It's a legit Black Limited modded with 3S-GTE engine wearing custom N2 body kit, GT-winged, add-on diffusers, aftermarket headlights/taillights, time-attack style CF hood and lambo-style scissor doors! Very interesting mixture of parts. Being different is a good thing!
Many AE86 owners might think this car is a joke because of its out-of-the-world styling, but the more we see, the more greatness we find! It's not a car that everyone can accept, but it's the brave action from the owner that we really respect and appreciate. That's why we gave him the BEST 10 award.
7) Mr Ken's Initial D Final Stage AE86
Mr Ken put so much time and effort to build his Trueno AE86 to look like Takumi Fujiwara's car from Initial D Final Stage. It's not only a tofu lookalike car, his car is really fast and functional too. While we're journeying to Okayama, he did achieve 208km/h (at 7000kmk/h) top speed with another 1500rpm remaining!
Mr Ken drove from Tokyo to Okayama Circuit, tracked a little there, and drove back to Tokyo in his AE86 without a single problem! His 20V 4A-GE is built by Expert OZ.
8) E.PRIME's Levin Coupe
This is Mr Daito's AE86 Levin Coupe. He runs a custom shop called E.PRIME where he fabricated most of the custom parts on his AE86. Mr Daito's Levin was on display at Wekfest Japan this year at Port Messe, Nagoya.
Mr Daito doesn't build his AE86 only for car shows. He actually uses his turbocharged 4A-GE 300hp AE86 to track and race! His AE86 is clearly a work of art!
9) Car Factory Ai's N2 Levin
Car Factory Ai is a famous Japanese AE86 tuner that always participates in Hot Version N2 races battling with Tsuchiya-san and other N2 Legends. We actually didn't think of passing the award to any race cars because there were many more awesome N2 machines, but we had to because we watched the 8-lap N2 race and saw how amazing the driver Koutarou Koizumi is.
Koutarou Koizumi started at 2nd position and dropped to 5th place due to a mistake, but he was so committed to the race and didn't give up, he fought back hard and got 2nd place again. He put up a really good show for everyone there. We were amazed by his skills and talent in the AE86. Koutarou Koizumi is a damn fast driver!
10) Mr Kawai's Special AE86
Last but not least, Mr Kawai's AE86 made it to the 'HAYASHI86 SELECT BEST 10' list. His AE86 is setup in an old school way, doing 20V engine transplant when it wasn't popular during his time, which explains the messy wiring setups, but a practical one!
It has a really clean zenki red/maroon interior with aftermarket bucket seats and aftermarket Omori and Ultra gauges.
Check out the sunshade! The artwork and signature was from the Initial D author himself! Mr Kawai's AE86 is a really special one that we've got the chance to ride along and drive in it. :D
These are our BEST 10 AE86s at AE86 Festival 2019. Which one do you like most?
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